I listened to Elon Musk and the Neuralink team for 8,5 hours

Author

Martin Musiol
August 06, 2024

On my way home from Switzerland this weekend, while packing and unpacking, I listened to Lex Fridman's very technical, in-depth conversation with Elon Musk and the Neuralink team.

I summarized all things AI, future tech, and the future of humanity from that.

Plus, interesting updates on the most enabling online course. 🤘 

Reading time is 5:21 min; Vamos!

The 8,5 hours interview is actually a series of 5 interviews.

These five interviews were with Elon Musk, CEO of Neuralink (and SpaceX, Tesla, xAI, and CTO of X), DJ See, COO and President of Neuralink, Matthew MacDougall, Neuralink’s Head Neurosurgeon, Bliss Chapman, Brain Interface Software Lead, and Noland Arbaugh, patient 1 with a Neuralink device implanted in his brain.

Disclaimer: They have covered many topics that I don’t think are relevant. Therefore, I am excluding parts like history lessons, aliens, calibration of the implant, the UI of the Neuralink app, and God.

Interview with Elon Musk

 He has confirmed Neuralink's second human implant.

On Telepathy

  • Amazing first insights: within a few years, we will be able to communicate with each other at 10 * the speed of talking … if we both have a Neuralink

❝

Maybe five years from now, we might be at a megabit, faster than any human could possibly communicate by typing or speaking. Provided they wanted a Neuralink, too. Otherwise, they won’t be able to absorb the signals fast enough.

On the future of Neuralink

  • First, they want to address the basics: neurological issues like spinal cord damage. Then, they will move to more complex applications like restoring vision (Blindsight project) and eventually aim for human augmentation with AI.

  • Skills like thought-to-speech, thought-to-text, and even thought-to-thought will be possible.

❝

Let's give people superpowers!

On the merging with AI

  • AI will eventually be much faster than we are. It’ll be similar to talking to a tree – very different communication rates and intelligence.

  • Thus, we have to improve the human output rate.

On xAI

  • Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, is establishing one of the world's largest supercomputers in Memphis, Tennessee, with the "Gigafactory of Compute."

  • xAI develops Grok 2 at the moment and plans to have Grok 3 at the end of the year.

❝

For AI, that means you've got to have the most powerful training computer, and the rate of improvement of the training computer has to be faster than everyone else, or you will not win.

❝

Grok 3 is going to be next level. I mean, what people are currently seeing with Grok is baby Grok.

On Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus

  • There are engineering challenges in creating human-like robots. Just the hand is 50% of the effort.

❝

Optimus is going to be the biggest source of data.

  • Why? Because it can interact with the world in many different ways. When pouring water into a glass, it will have immediate feedback on whether it is aimed properly.

  • Optimus could even drive a car eventually. 😄 

Interview with DJ Seo

COO & President of Neuralink

On biophysics of neural interfaces 

  • The brain consists of billions of neurons connected in a complex network, bathed in charged molecules.

  • Neurons communicate through ionic currents facilitated by

    voltage-gated ion channels.

❝

These voltage-selective ion channels are one of nature's best inventions. If you think about it, they're doing the job of modern-day transistors.

On how Neuralink works

  • Neuralink consists of three main components: the N1 Implant, the surgical robot, and the Neuralink Application.

  • N1 uses thin, flexible threads with multiple electrodes to record neural signals from the brain.

❝

We have 64 of these threads, each thread having 16 electrodes along the span of three to four millimeters, separated by 200 microns.

On digital telepathy

  • Digital telepathy is the ability to control digital devices using thoughts, involving the brain adapting to the device and the device interpreting neural signals.

On Safety

  • Neuralink's threads have shown minimal tissue damage and immune response in animal studies.

❝

The gold standard is to look at the brain tissue. What sort of trauma did you cause the tissue, and does that correlate to whatever behavioral anomalies you may have seen?

❝

We have an entire department, pathology, that looks at these tissue slices.

On upgrades

  • Neuralink devices can be upgraded through hardware changes and firmware updates, with the company exploring less invasive and more efficient future upgrades.

❝

It's not a static, one-time device that can only do the thing that it says it can. I mean, it's similar to Tesla; you can do over-the-air firmware updates…

On future capabilities

  • Future applications could include speech prosthetics and potential insights into cognition and consciousness.

❝

I do think it's possible that 8 billion people will be walking around with Neuralink.

Interview with Matthew MacDougall

On the surgery

  • The Neuralink surgery involves making a small hole in the skull and inserting flexible electrode threads into the brain's motor cortex.

  • A robot precisely inserts the threads, avoiding blood vessels and minimizing tissue damage. In position and depth of insertion, it works better than any human surgeon.  

On implanting Neuralink on self

❝

On safety grounds alone, sure. I'll do it tomorrow.

But there is no current utility for me.

On Consciousness

❝

I have this sense that consciousness is a lot less magical than our instincts want to claim it is.

❝

Consciousness is the sensation of some part of your brain being active so you feel it working. You feel the part of your brain that thinks of winged creatures or the taste of coffee. You feel those parts of your brain being active, the way I'm feeling my palm being touched, and that sensory system that feels the brain working is consciousness.

  • [Martin] I have a hard time believing this.

Interview with Bliss Chapman

On intention vs action

  • The brain-computer interface (BCI) operates on the user's intention rather than physical action, which can lead to a feeling of the cursor moving before the user consciously intends it.

  • This direct neural control allows for superhuman performance in tasks like cursor control.

❝

He [Noland, patient 1] said it moves before he intends it to, which is kind of surreal and something that I would love to experience myself one day. What is it like to have the thing just be so immediate, so fluid that it feels like it's happening before you're actually intending it to move?

❝

You have a higher ceiling performance because you don't have to buffer your intention through your arm or muscle. You get, just by nature of having a brain implant, like 75 millisecond lead time on any action that you're actually trying to take.

On future improvements

  • Scaling up the number of electrodes (channels) is a major focus for future improvements. Currently, there are 1k channels; the next version will have between 3k and 6k, and the curve will continue.

  • Understanding how the technology works for people with severe disabilities will be crucial for product-market fit.

❝

I'm really excited to understand how this device works for folks who cannot speak at all, who have no ability to bootstrap themselves into useful control by voice command, and who are extremely limited in their current capabilities. I think that will be an incredibly useful signal for us to understand really, what is an existential threat for all startups, which is product market fit.

Interview with Noland Arbaugh

On being the first Neuralink human participant

  • He felt confident and unafraid due to his faith and trust in the Neuralink team.

❝

There's something about being the first one to do something. It's pretty cool.

On moving a mouse with the brain

❝

I looked over, and the cursor just shot over. It was wild. I had to take a step back. I was like, 'This should not be happening.'

❝

It made me think that this technology, that what I'm doing is way, way more impressive than I ever thought.

On Webgrid

  • Webgrid is a game used to measure BCI performance.

  • Noland is highly competitive and constantly strives to improve his performance.

❝

It is 'No. Once I'm in Webgrid, you better break this record, or you're going to waste five hours of your life right now.'

❝

I'm at 8.5 right now. I would've beaten that the day before I came to Austin.

On app improvements

  • Noland provides constant feedback to improve the app.

❝

I want as much control over my environment as possible.

I would like to be able to connect to more devices. Right now, it's just the computer. I'd like to be able to use it on my phone or use it on different consoles, different platforms.

On gaming

  • Noland enjoys playing Civilization VI, focusing on science and tech victories.

  • He strategically manages his implant's battery life while gaming. (N1 needs to be recharged daily.)

❝

I'm constantly looking at how much battery percentage I have left on my implant, like, 'All right. I have 30%, which equates to X amount of time, which means I have to break this record in the next hour and a half or else it's not happening tonight.'

On future Neuralink capabilities

❝

To give someone the ability to see for the first time in their life would just be... I mean, it might be more amazing than even helping someone like me.

On controlling Optimus robot

  • Noland is enthusiastic about the possibility of controlling an Optimus robot.

❝

If an Optimus robot could do that, I could live an incredibly independent life and not be such a burden on those around me, and it would change the way people like me live.

The end.

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